STORRS — Shabazz Napier will do his thing. Ryan Boatright will do his thing. So will Omar Calhoun. They are the three leading scorers for the UConn men's basketball team. Two of them — Napier and Boatright — stand in the 6-foot range. Calhoun checks in at 6-5.

The point? The Huskies (5-1) need something, anything from their big men on the offensive end of the floor. It is a point of emphasis as UConn prepares to play host tonight to New Hampshire (2-3) at the XL Center.

"I need my bigs to step up," coach Kevin Ollie said. "We're not going to keep winning with just our guard play. We're going to need to have somebody down there to score, getting us a double-double. All our big men have that potential."

Nobody on the roster has recorded a double-double this year, not even the guards. The Huskies have just three double-figure scoring games from their big men, two of them from lanky forward DeAndre Daniels. The Huskies have yet to get more than more than eight rebounds in a game from any of their interior guys.

Of course, rebounding has been a problem thus far. UConn has been bettered on the backboards in all six of its games. That was not unexpected, but it is highly unusual for the Huskies.

So unusual that Ollie can't get through a practice without harping on rebounding.

"Coach Ollie emphasizes it so much during practice that it gets annoying sometimes," Boatright said. "We understand that. We know for us to win games we're going to have to rebound. We escaped that in the first four games but against New Mexico it bit us in the butt. We know we have to rebound."

The Huskies have a chance to finally win a rebounding battle tonight.

New Hampshire isn't particularly big. UConn should be able to ease past the Wildcats without having to rebound. The Huskies should have no problems with relying on their guards.

But before too long, the Huskies will be into Big East play. Before that, they take on North Carolina State next week in New York. Bad rebounding within the league is a recipe for disaster, and getting minimal offense from the guys up front will only exacerbate the issue.

In short, the big guys have to get involved and they have to do it soon.

"I'm going to keep demanding that from them," Ollie said. "They're getting better. I'm not going to stop believing in them. I'm going to keep running plays for them. That's how I do it. They're the only big bodies I've got.

"They're getting better. They're not discouraged. I believe in these guys. The bigs are going to rebound for us. One day, it's going to happen and it's going to happen soon."

Even marginally effective big men will have an impact. Nobody is going to rely on Tyler Olander to put up huge numbers, but just decent numbers will allow Napier and Boatright, the obvious focal points of the offense, a bit more room to do what they do.

Look closely enough and you can see the guards intentionally going to the big guys early. They have to make themselves a reasonable option soon.

"We're just trying to get them going," Boatright said. "Me and Shabazz can get ourselves going.

"We try to get them going and get them some confidence early in the game because we're going to need them through the rest of the season."

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